Microsoft Lumia 640 XL Review

Camera

Armed with an upgraded camera, you’ll relish over its great performance.

One of the few changes, aside from the aesthetics, is that the camera has been bumped up to a 13-megapixel 1/3” sensor – with a wider f/2.0 aperture lens. In contrast, the Lumia 640 was outfitted with an 8-megapixel one with an f/2.2 aperture lens. That’s a delightful treat, more so when the front-facing camera receives the same treatment by being upgraded to a 5-megapixel snapper. Naturally, the Lumia Camera app is in tow to offer hardcore shutterbugs a useful full manual mode – where the focus, ISO, white balance, and shutter speed can be modified.

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Having been impressed by the Lumia 640 camera already, we have the same reservations here with the Lumia 640 XL. The difference at play here, naturally, is the higher capacity of detail it’s able to produce – one that makes it slightly more apt for cropping. While it’s stellar for outdoors, where colors tend to be emphasized by heavier saturation, low lighting shots still continue to be grainy looking and light on the details. Unfortunately, its LED flash loses its effectiveness after 5 feet. Love it or hate it, the Rich Tone HDR mode continues to sprinkle that artificial look to our shots by boosting the exposure in necessary areas – while adding sharpening and more color saturation in the process.

We’re also happy to report that there’s a subtle improvement to its video recording quality as well! For starters, it’s more stable with its performance – whereas with the Lumia 640, it was marred by a sensitive white balance adjustment. This time, there’s none of that around, thank goodness! Well, the only soft spot is the artifacting elements that come up when panning quickly.

Microsoft Lumia 640 XL Sample Videos

Multimedia

Big is better! It certainly shows here when it comes to watching videos.

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When it comes to music, we have two options to choose from – the usual Xbox Music app or MixRadio. Both handle the task of playing music, as they both employ Windows Phone’s Modern UI design style. Despite the stronger 76.6 dB of power coming out of its speaker this time, the end result is still identical to the Lumia 640. Quite simply, it continues to sound strained at the loudest setting.

Thanks to the boost in the screen’s brightness output, the Lumia 640 XL, as a whole, offers the more ideal video watching experience. Our only qualm is once again related to the resolution, which is rather limiting considering high definition content can’t be experienced to their utmost best.

posted on Jul 24, 2015, 8:08 AM 1

Posts: 585; Member since: May 18, 2013

Yeah, I wasn't expecting it to be a gamer phone, but a newer chipset would be nice. They have used the 400 quite a lot on different Lumia phones and it is quite dated. A minor flaw, but everything else rocks. That's just me.

posted on Jul 24, 2015, 12:22 PM 1

Posts: 2356; Member since: Feb 14, 2011

I honestly would recommend you looking at getting a Lumia 1520 instead. Just about everything on it is better than this phone and on eBay you can find one that is in excellent (sometimes even brand new condition) for about $250, which is the same price as this phone. Also, I'm fairly certain the 1520 is going to receive the Windows 10 update as they used the device to demonstrate Windows 10 a few months ago.

posted on Jul 24, 2015, 9:09 AM 1

Posts: 44; Member since: Feb 15, 2015

Not trying to start an OS war but this phone getting an 8 and the Zenfone 2 getting an 8.3 is crazy. I owned the Zenfone 2 and I currently use the 640 (not much different than the XL). It's not that close.
Besides that I have to say the value for the 640 is extremely good, the perfect back up phone. the best phone for $100-$130 range.

posted on Jul 24, 2015, 9:57 AM 2

Posts: 5192; Member since: Oct 28, 2013

IMO this should be 8.5-9. There is simply nothing wrong with it.
I highly doubt the effectiveness of their custom script, only because other sites get nearly 9hrs of video off the phone. Higher than the 7hrs custom script.

posted on Jul 27, 2015, 9:25 AM 0

Posts: 18; Member since: Jun 06, 2015

Sure, and if they had thought to include a Taser, Cortana could also double as a nanny...
(My point being -- with a $250 USD price point, the features & performance of the entry-level 640 XL phablet already make it a 'phantastic' value; Microsoft isn't overlooking the high-end phablet market, and the 1st "Continuum" phablet from M'soft will stretch the definition of "Smartphone" further than it has ever been taken before... Can you hold your breath 'til March?)

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